Wall Street is inching toward a historic milestone just as the ride is getting bumpier in the stock market.
The S&P 500 hovered just below its next big round-number milestone — 7,000 points — on Thursday. But the final push is proving difficult, as recent geopolitical flare-ups, coupled with wild swings in megacap technology stocks, have stirred up some volatility.
The large-cap benchmark index rose 0.3%, to end at 6,944.47 on Thursday, leaving it just 0.8% shy of crossing the 7,000 milestone for the first time in its history.
Thursday marked 294 trading days — or about 14 months — since the S&P 500’s last 1,000-point milestone, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The index finished above 6,000 for the first time on Nov. 11, 2024.
These 1,000-point milestones have been coming along more frequently lately. The index took just 190 days to get from 5,000 to 6,000, and 719 days to go from 4,000 to 5,000. By comparison, it took 4,168 trading days for the index to go from 1,000 to 2,000.
However, what might have seemed like an easy final push has proven more challenging than some might have expected. The S&P 500 on Thursday was less than 60 points away from its next major round number — yet the index has been stuck near the 6,900 level since late December, as the once-powerful rally in megacap tech stocks has started to lose momentum.
However, the stall ahead of the 7,000 level fits a familiar pattern: History shows that the S&P 500 has typically experienced bouts of volatility as it approaches major round-number milestones, according to BTIG Research.
“While there is nothing inherently bearish about a big round number, four of the last five big 1K levels did provide some turbulence,” Jonathan Krinsky, chief market technician at BTIG Research, said in a Wednesday client note.
SOURCE: BTIG ANALYSIS, BLOOMBERG
Similarly, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average finished at 49,442.44 on Thursday afternoon, or just 1.1% shy of its first-ever 50,000-point milestone. The blue-chip average also has a history of experiencing “consolidation or volatility” when approaching round-number milestones, Krinsky noted, as this was the case during three of its last four 10,000-point milestones.
The stock market has gotten off to a chaotic and volatile start to 2026. Just halfway through January, stocks have struggled to find their footing amid the U.S. military action in Venezuela that led to the capture of that country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro; President Donald Trump’s threats to seize Greenland; rising U.S.-Iran tensions; and growing concerns over the Federal Reserve’s political independence following a criminal investigation into Jerome Powell, the current Fed chair.
Nanette Abuhoff Jacobson, global investment strategist at Hartford Funds, said that while the S&P 500 this month has repeatedly bounced back from losses during the following session — helping to keep the index within a whisker of record territory — the outperformance of non-U.S. stocks underscores how heavily geopolitical risks are weighing on the U.S. market.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite have each risen just 1.4% so far in 2026, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 2.9% and the small-cap Russell 2000 has advanced 7.8% during the same period, according to FactSet data.
By contrast, the iShares MSCI ACWI ex-U.S. ETF has jumped 4.2% so far this year, while the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF was up 6.2% and the iShares Core MSCI Europe ETF has gained 2.8% during the same period, according to FactSet data.
“One truth is that earnings are really good, policy is moving in an accommodative direction and fiscal stimulus is very supportive of financial conditions and risk assets — but central-bank independence is being challenged, the world order is under threat and the sustainability of fiscal debt is being questioned,” Abuhoff Jacobson told MarketWatch in a phone interview.
For now, those market-moving forces will need to coexist. However things shake out could shape how stocks perform in 2026, she added.
U.S. stocks finished higher on Thursday. The Dow rose 0.6%, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq each popped around 0.3%, according to FactSet data.
